Example New York

In the early 1990s, New York was considered one of the most dangerous cities in the US. The situation was catastrophic with more than 2,000 murders, more than 100,000 car thefts and 100,000 burglaries per year. All the more impressive was the turnaround in 1993 that the elected New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and his Chief of Police William Bratton were able to achieve. Only a few years after taking office, they were able to decrease the number of felonies by almost half. In 2002, New York had become the safest large city in the US, and the crime rate had dropped by 70% since 1992. This positive development has continued until now: aside from a changed strategy for fighting and preventing crime, this success was mostly achieved by the new management methods Giuliani and Bratton had introduced:

• Zero tolerance
• Empowerment of the precincts
• Central measurement of results
• Systematic performance increase

Read more about the methods and successful reorganization of the New York Police Department and the transferability to other branch organizations. The entire article from the Harvard Business Manager is available for downloading.